DJ Bravo opens up on 2014 India tour debacle, praises BCCI for being supportive

His rebellious move cost him in such a way that he turned out to be the only player who couldn't return to ODI cricket ever again after that fall-out.

DJ Bravo, the former West Indies all-rounder, may have said goodbye to international cricket recently but his relation with the ODI format tarnished in a dramatic manner. He played the last One-Day International (ODI) of his career against India back in 2014. The West Indies visited India for a bilateral series and Bravo was leading the side then.

The Indian cricket fans were excited to see both the teams battling on the field but they were left heartbroken as the West Indies Cricket Board decided to pull out in the middle of the tour. They told the BCCI that there was no other option left after a contracts fallout with the players.

Four years later, the all-rounder himself revealed some of the unknown facts about that unfortunate incident.

“Collectively as a team, we decided what to do. I listened to every single player. Apart from one player, everyone signed on a piece of paper, that they were all in support of leaving the tour. But we did not just decide to walk away from the tour. There were different times when we tried to reach out to both our WIPA president [Wavell Hinds] and the cricket president [Dave Cameron, Cricket West Indies president]. So we threatened [to pull out] from the first game, but we played. We threatened for the second game, but we played. The [fourth] game we went out (the whole team accompanied Bravo to the toss), so it was just a message and a signal, trying to let them know that we are not happy with whatever is going on,” the 35-year-old said in an exclusive interview to i955fm.

He also recollected that a message at 3 am from the then BCCI chief N Srinivasan prompted him to convince his team to play the first ODI after threatening to pull out. Then, in the middle of the fourth ODI, in the hill town of Dharamsala, the WICB informed the BCCI that it had decided to call off the remainder of the tour after a "contracts fall" with players.

"I remember fully well before we said we weren't going to play the first game, 3 am in the morning, I get a message from the BCCI boss, the old one, Mr (N) Srinivasan, that 'please take the field'. I listened to him - and woke up at 6 am to tell the team that we have to play. And everyone was against playing. Everyone thought that I panicked and chickened out and all these things," said Bravo.

Big money was at stake but Bravo said the BCCI understood their problems.

“Yeah, they understood, of course. Because they were very supportive of all of us. Actually, they even offered to pay us whatever we were losing. We were like, 'we don't want you to pay us. We need our board to sort out our contracts’. The BCCI was very, very supportive and that is one of the reasons why most of us were still able to continue playing without any serious, serious problems taking place,” Bravo said.

Bravo still regrets that he couldn't tape the conversations took place between him, players and the West Indies Cricket bosses during that episode. His rebellious move cost him in such a way that he turned out to be the only player who couldn't return to ODI cricket ever again after that fall-out.